How Chrissy Teigen Continues to Pave the Way for Honest Motherhood

Whether she's sharing a photo of her stretch marks or live-tweeting the Super Bowl, the model's outspoken nature rarely finds a limit. While the quality can sometimes put her at odds with some famous colleagues, her willingness to scrap the sugarcoating and speak her mind has done wonders for her fans, particularly in the realm of motherhood.

After winning hearts all over the world as the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit cover girl who loves food, John Legend and sounding off against Internet trolls, fans began to think of the Twitter-friendly Teigen as their BFF, rather than a red carpet staple. In the process, admirers celebrated when she celebrated and cried when she cried.

When it came to publicizing her fertility struggles for the first time, Teigen was at her most vulnerable—and most relatable.

Photos

"I will say, honestly, John and I were having trouble," she said during a taping of FABLife in 2015. "We would have kids five, six years ago if it'd happened...but my gosh, it's been a process!"

"So, anytime somebody asks me if I'm going to have kids, I'm like, 'One day, you're going to ask that to the wrong girl who is really struggling, and it's going to be really hurtful to them. And I hate that. So, I hate it. Stop asking me!'" she continued.

The feeling rang true for dozens of viewers watching who had secretly faced similar personal struggles. Just weeks later, she and her famous husband announced they were expecting their first child.

Read

"As many of you know, we've been trying to have a baby for a while now. It hasn't been easy, but we kept trying because we can't wait to bring our first child into the world and grow our family," she wrote on social media. "We're so excited that it's finally happening. Thank you for all your love and well wishes."

As fans reveled in the couple's happy news, naysayers were quick to rip her apart at any sign of a flaw. After welcoming daughter Luna Simone Stephens in April, she and Legend simply went out to dinner together. While the evening plans seemed entirely normal to the new parents, many critics used the moment as a reason to sink their digital talons into the proud mom.

Instead of backtracking to cater to the extreme views of the few, Teigen stood up for herself with Legend by her side. "I went to dinner. People are pissed. Good morning!" she quipped on Twitter. "'I never wanted to leave my daughter, I love her, BUT THAT'S JUST ME' - the passive aggressiveness is real!"

Teigen proved early in her first foray into motherhood that she wasn't going to play by anyone's rules but her own. When questions started popping up about her post-pregnancy weight, the television personality quelled everyone's expectations by putting everything into unairbrushed perspective.

"Anyone in the public eye, we have all the help we could ever need to be able to shed everything," she once told Today. "So I think people get this jaded sensation that everybody's losing it so quickly, but we just happen to be the ones who are out there. We have nutritionists, we have dietitians, we have trainers, we have our own schedules, we have nannies. We have people who make it possible for us to get back into shape. But nobody should feel like that's normal, or like that's realistic."

Read

Even with all of those Hollywood resources, Teigen was honest about her baby weight "rut." "You just realize you have to give yourself time and understand that you push out a baby, and it took this long to put on the weight, and it's not going to peel right off, and that's OK," she told E! News in July 2016.

Instead, Teigen confidently sported the skin she was in as she documented herself breastfeeding on social media and months later, faced any body insecurities and posed for Sports Illustrated Swimsuit again—though not without making those worries known. "She showed up telling me she would only shoot one pieces, and if I could throw a blanket over the top of her, that would be great," the magazine's editor MJ Day said.

"I think she surprised herself on this trip, because I don't think she was seeing herself quite the way we were seeing her." However she was seeing herself, Teigen was open about it.

Read

Never one to give anything but a candid public portrayal of herself as a mother and a woman, the foodie brushed aside any vulnerability once again in March and revealed to readers that she had been diagnosed with postpartum depression.

"I looked at my doctor, and my eyes welled up because I was so tired of being in pain. Of sleeping on the couch. Of waking up throughout the night. Of throwing up. Of taking things out on the wrong people. Of not enjoying life. Of not seeing my friends. Of not having the energy to take my baby for a stroll," she wrote in the April issue of Glamour.

"There are weeks when I still don't leave the house for days; then I'm randomly at the Super Bowl or Grammys. (This is cringeworthily unrelatable, and I am very aware of that—it's giving me anxiety.)," she continued. "Physically, I still don't have energy for a lot of things, but a lot of new moms deal with this. Just crawling around with Luna can be hard. My back pain has gotten better, but my hands and wrists still hurt. And it can still be tough for me to stomach food some days. But I'm dealing."

Whether she is describing her first bouts of postpartum depression in a national magazine or picking out Halloween costumes for her only daughter on social media, honesty is always key for mama Teigen—and it's an attribute that will only better the process for endless women to come.